I looked at Philip Rivers’ arm and saw a man that could fan Derek Jeter with three straight heaters. I looked at Philip Rivers’ passing efficiency and saw a quarterback allergic to incompletions.

I looked at Philip Rivers’ numbers with the Chargers, compared them to what Drew Brees did during his time in San Diego, and thought that the organization absolutely made the right decision in letting Brees walk. But then I saw that Acee thought the same thing, and I figured my logic had to be flawed.

So I looked up Rivers’ seven postseason performances and saw statistics that only the generous would call mediocre. A 58-percent completion percentage, eight TD passes, nine interceptions, and just three wins.

I’ve long believed that defining a quarterback’s legacy based on playoff success alone is short-sighted and lazy, but when the Chargers fired their last coach after going 14-2 in the regular season, they broadcasted their standard to the country, and Rivers hasn’t met it.

But Brees? Passing and touchdown records aside, he basically treats the regular season like a 16-game warm-up session.

In nine playoff starts, he has completed 66.8 of his throws, averaged 331 yards per game, tossed 22 TDs to just four interceptions, and has won this low-key event known as the Super Bowl. He’s even Saintly in his playoff losses, compiling 866 yards, six touchdown passes and two interceptions in his last two postseason defeats.

If it’s the fourth quarter and my team is down six, I’m giving the ball to Brees. In fact, if it’s December 24 and I haven’t started my shopping, I’m giving my credit card to him, too. In clutch situations, the man is Tiger Woods-focused and Steve McQueen-cool.

I can hear you hollering in your buffalo-wing-stained Rivers jersey: “Brees couldn’t hack it in the Chargers system! At least nowhere close to the way Rivers has!”

And yeah, there’s something to that. Brees typically posted 3,000 to 3,500-yard seasons with the Bolts, and threw 80 touchdown passes and 53 interceptions. Hardly Ryan Leaf, but nothing compared to Philip, who has had four consecutive 4000-yard years, tossed more than twice as many touchdowns as he has interceptions while posting a 95.4 career passer rating.

But didn’t quarterbacks’ numbers around the NFL skyrocket right about when Brees left and Rivers came in? Didn’t Brees himself lead the league in passing yards for the first of three times in his inaugural year with the Saints? Is it that inconceivable to think that offensive mastermind Norv Turner would have given Brees’ potential a shot of Red Bull?

Look, sometimes Sam Bowie is taken ahead of Michael Jordan. And sometimes Babe Ruth is traded to the Yankees for cash. But the Chargers letting Brees walk six years ago doesn’t remotely resemble either of those front-office blunders.

San Diego had sunk millions into Rivers, watched Brees end his Bolts tenure with an average season, and has since witnessed Rivers become one of the best quarterbacks to never tell the country he’s going to Disneyworld.

But whether it’s parking curbside during street-sweeping, or hiring Bernie Madoff as your investment manager – a mistake is a mistake. The Chargers have never won a Super Bowl, and they failed to lock up a man who did so in a spectacular fashion.

When the Saints hoisted the Lombardi Trophy two years ago, Brees probably pinched himself. The Chargers, meanwhile, likely kicked themselves.

But I can’t keep going on and on about this. It’s movie night here and I have “Gigli” in my DVD player.